The World Climate Data and Monitoring Programme (WCDMP),a sub-program of the World Climate Programme (WCP), provides an international coordination of the WMO Climate System Monitoring. Priorities of WCDMP include the provision of guidance to the WMO Members in the area of climate data and climate assessment and monitoring; and the publication and dissemination of WMO authoritative reports on the status of the global climate. WCDMP offers in parallel a platform for an international collaboration for fostering high quality climate data sets and their exchange and undertaking capacity building and training with particular emphasis on Data Rescue (DARE), Climate Data Management Systems (CDMS), and the use of approved scientific methods and tools for the analysis of climate trends and extremes. The WMO technical Commission for Climatology (CCl) guides the development and implementation of WCDMP projects through an Open Panel of CCl Experts on Climate Data Management (OPACE-I) and an Open Panel of CCl Experts on Climate Monitoring and Assessment (OPACE-II). WCDMP undertakes several projects and initiatives with WMO sponsored and co-sponsored programmes and the WMO regional associations.